Graduate Students

T through Z
Back to O through S.

Return to People and History

Jessica Taal		Personal Interests: Growing stuff, dogs, running, veggie cooking, documentary films, drawing, hiking and camping, biking around the East Bay. Websites of interest: San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center Indybay.org Cars-R-Coffins carsrcoffins.com Impress Jodie impressjodie.com Community Alliance with Family Farmers caff.org Prison University Project prisionuniversityproject.org East Bay Bicycle Coalition ebbc.org
E-mail: jessie_@berkeley.edu BA 2004 (Anthropology) UC Berkeley Research Interests: Political ecology, political economy, environmental history, science studies, agriculture, the anthropology of food, environmental justice movements, companion species. Currently I am interested in non-native species eradication programs on public lands in the United States. I am looking at the ways in which concepts in environmental management, such as "biodiversity" and "native ecosystems", are linked to ideas about nation, race, and immigration, among other things. Regional Focus: California and the American West

---

Alexander Tarr		Personal Interests:
E-mail: avatarr8@berkeley.edu BA 2004 (Cinema Television Production) University of Southern California Research Interests: The cultural geography and political economy of local organic food production and consumption in urban areas. Regional Focus:

---

Sapna Thottathil		Personal Interests: Websites of interest: Sapna's blog: Sapna in Kerala http://sapnainkerala.wordpress.com/
E-mail: sapna.thottathil@berkeley.edu BA 2004 (Environmental Studies) University of Chicago BA 2004 (International Studies) University of Chicago MS 2006 (Environmental Change and Management) University of Oxford Research Interests: Broadly speaking: green development, ethical consumption, and the political ecology of agro-food systems.  While here at Berkeley, I hope to study Kerala, India’s initiative to convert all of its cultivable land to organic agriculture within the next five years. Regional Focus: Kerala, India

---

Shawn VanAusdal		Personal Interests:
E-mail: svanman@aol.com BA Research Interests: Regional Focus:

---

Johntell Washington		Personal Interests: Grad school’s greedily eaten up the time and energy that I once had for interesting hobbies and cool life stuff, so these days I just try to fit the fun in where I can. When my head isn’t buried in a book, you can probably find me catching a ball game on the tube (sports fanatic that I am), listening to music, or relaxing with friends at a local lounge. Websites of Interest: www.fabookclub.com FABC Back in '04, a few of us local heads started our own little jawn, a music appreciation group—play a couple of your favorite tunes, and chop it up with familiar faces and new acquaintances from around the town. Dare I say, four years later, we just might be the premier social network for young, professional, progressive people of color in the Bay. Get familiar! www.policylink.org PolicyLink A bicoastal policy think tank, and a national leader in the growing regional equity movement. www.greenlining.org The Greenlining Institute 'Sophisticated activism' – progressives doing excellent work on behalf of California's low-income and minority communities.
E-mail: johntell@berkeley.edu BA 2002(Philosophy) Pomona College, Claremont Research Interests: My work revolves around the question of regional (under)development, and those marginal zones of the capitalist world either abandoned or willfully ignored in the system's triumph through space and place. That theme immediately calls to mind the troubles of far-away lands and peoples, and the body of knowledge known as Development Studies. But I contend that America's past and present struggles with spatialized poverty are, too, best viewed through the analytical lens of “underdevelopment,” in the sense of emphasizing the full range of social, political, and economic ingredients necessary for sustained growth to take place in a stagnant territory or region. In this vein, my dissertation research focuses on the 'out of nowhere' emergence of Durham and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in the post-Civil War “New South” era. Against a regional backdrop of decades-long economic stagnation, retrograde politics, and war defeat, these territories evolved from anonymous hamlets to urban-industrial giants—all in the space of roughly forty years, and through largely self-directed growth. In elucidating the cultural, social, political, and economic elements that made these success stories possible, I hope to make the case for development studies and regional economic development as congruent fields, and to illustrate some of the replicable 'first principles' of economic growth. Areas of Concentration: - Regional Economic Development - Industrial Geography - US Urban Geography Regional Focus: US regional territories; the American “New South”

---

Mary Whelan		Personal Interests:
E-mail: mary.whelan@gmail.com BA 2004 (Chemistry and Political Science) New College of Florida Research Interests: Biogeochemistry, specifically terrestrial-atmospheric gas exchanges that are related to ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect; how different ecological communities will exchange a variety of compounds with different ratios. Rgional Focus:

---

Max Woodworth		Personal Interests: Chinese food, watching European soccer, playing squash, canoeing/fishing the mountain lakes in the Bay area
E-mail: maxwoodworth@gmail.com BSLL 1998 (Chinese) Georgetown University MA 2007 (Asian Studies) UC Berkeley Research Interests: The political economy of development in China and Taiwan and the political and economic geographies behind the formation of globally oriented urban counter-culture communities in Chinese societies (eg, punks, hippies, rappers, slackers, etc). Rgional Focus: China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong

---

Back to O through S

Return to People and History